The Morning After: What Election Night Means For CU’s

The next time someone tells you the more things change, the more they stay the same, remind them about the election of 2016. No one, including Donald Trump, knows precisely what all this means for credit unions, but there are some very intriguing possibilities.

Mandate relief is a real possibility. One of the most conservative Congresses in history will now have a Republican president. The Democrats only picked up one Senate seat and although the House majority was trimmed, the flame thrower faction will see last night’s results, with some justification, as vindication of their scorched earth approach to governing. Without the threat of a veto, legislation to scale back the CFPB and provide mandate relief to smaller financial institutions may grow legs.

CFPB will be in the cross hairs. When the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the CFPB’s director was an at-will servant of the President, credit unions were disappointed that the Court didn’t go further in invalidating the whole enterprise. Now that case has some real teeth. With anti-regulation Trump coming to town, the Bureau is effectively in limbo. Who do you thing his Director will be?

What regulators give, they can take away. Expect every single controversial regulation and guidance, ranging from the exempt employee threshold to the accommodation of transgender employees, to get a second look.

Some New Old Faces Go to Washington

By the way, the newly emboldened majority in the House will include former NYS Assembly Republican Minority Leader John Faso (R) and Assemblywoman Caudia Tenney. Former Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi (D) is back in the game, claiming NY’s third Congressional district. State Senator Adriano Espaillat easily won the seat vacated by the retiring Charlie Rangel.

Senate Republicans Holding On

On the state level, the results are almost as remarkable in their own way but there are still a couple of races in the Senate that are too close to call. As of right now it appears that reports of the demise of a Republican Senate have been greatly exaggerated. Here is the breakdown as reported by the Times Union this morning

Last night’s “results” left the Senate breakdown: 32 Republicans, 23 mainline Democrats, seven members of the Independent Democratic Conference, and one Simcah Felder (a Democrat who conferences with the Republicans).

If everything holds, with Felder, the GOP would have an outright majority of 33 members. “

The Democrats hold a slight lead in a Long Island race that is headed for a recount. The key point is that, even though the IDC has grown, it has done so at the expense of the Senate Democrat caucus. Furthermore, it’s possible that the Republicans will be in the majority without the IDC’s help.